Gordon Clark: South Africa is the model for real reconciliation

“Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past — not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Foundation)

When the late Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa in that country’s first fully democratic election in 1994 following the end of apartheid, his most important task was to deal with his country’s brutally racist past and the numerous injustices and human-rights violations that had occurred, mostly, but not exclusively, by whites on blacks.

Despite the joy shared by most South Africans that apartheid had been overthrown, the nation was in crisis. Many blacks who had been victimized by their previous white oppressors were out for blood while the white community, which was well educated and still in control of most of South Africa’s economy, was on edge about how their society would move forward and their place within it.

Mandela, displaying the wisdom that would lead him to be recognized as one of the most significant political leaders of the 20th century, understood that he needed to act quickly to address — and then move beyond — the wounds of his nation’s past.

One of his first moves was to help establish South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a restorative justice body set up to deal with past human-rights abuses while also offering the chance of amnesty to some who confessed to and apologized for past crimes. In the end, amnesty was granted to just 849 of 7,112 applicants, while 21,000 people who had been harmed by apartheid got to tell their stories.

The commission and its methods, modelled on truth and reconciliation commissions from other countries, particularly Chile’s Rettig Report that addressed the abuses and killings that occurred during the regime of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, was in contrast to taking the approach of the Nuremberg Trials that prosecuted Nazis for war crimes after the Second World War.

Mandela understood that to move his country forward in a united fashion, where whites and blacks needed to be equal citizens and work together, he required a process that would lead not just to punishment of perpetrators, but one that would lead to forgiveness and real reconciliation.

His approach did not sit well with all South Africans, many of whom felt that all abusers should be tried and punished. Almost none were.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, appointed to chair the commission, summed up the commission’s approach and objectives in the foreword he wrote to its report, which came out once its work was completed in 2002.

“Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past — not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us,” he wrote. “Let us move into the glorious future of a new kind of society where people count, not because of biological irrelevancies or other extraneous attributes, but because they are persons of infinite worth created in the image of God.”

Rather than bring some finality to that flawed relationship, the commission has instead chosen to perpetuate division by insisting, for instance, that new Canadians be forced to swear allegiance to native treaties, that all children be forced to learn about residential schools in only negative terms, that Canadian taxpayers be forced to promote native languages and perhaps worst, the native people in Canada be perpetually enshrined with a unique class of citizenship, maintaining them as “others”.

Tossing out terms like “cultural genocide” at the end of what was supposed to be a process of reconciliation, is also unlikely to foster improved relations with current Canadians now being asked to pay for the sins of former generations. It seems more about perpetuating non-native guilt about the past.

As University professors Rodney Clifton and Hymie Rubenstein pointed out in a National Post op-ed Wednesday, the commission has also given a very one-sided version of the truth about native residential schools, pointing out that most of what is now being called cultural genocide was simply an attempt to educate all citizens, native and non-natives alike, including immigrants from around the world, about “mainstream norms and practices.”

As much as the elite classes in Canada will embrace the reconciliation report, none of this is likely to fly with many average Canadians who had nothing to do with the past abuses of native people and who do not believe it fair that we enshrine different levels of citizenship.

What we should be doing is what South Africa is trying to do — create equality between the races and moving forward as a united nation. As long as natives are perpetually treated as victims, we will fail.

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